Introduction

Artificial intelligence, also known as AI  in today’s society, is often viewed negatively, even though AI has many positive factors and can reimagine the world. This paper aims to analyze the impact of AI on medical diagnosis. Recent trends in the industry have indicated benefits and extensive research in using artificial Intelligence. According to John McCarthy at Stanford University, AI is “ the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. AI does not have to confine itself to biologically observable methods”. According to IBM(International Business Machines), a technology company, AI includes machine learning, which is a branch of AI and computer science that focuses on the use of data and algorithms to imitate the way that humans learn, which gradually improves its accuracy. AI also includes deep learning, which according to IBM, is a subset of machine learning, which is essentially a neural network with three or more layers. These neural networks attempt to simulate the behavior of the human brain—albeit far from matching its ability—allowing it to “learn” from large amounts of data”.

 Humans diagnosing patients tend to have a margin of error and usually fail to detect issues early on where only a minuscule amount of damage is done. Humans usually either have a bias in diagnosing or do not have the knowledge or technology to detect diseases at an accurate yet fast pace. Moreover, Humans generally require tons of information and data before they can make a diagnosis. This is where artificial intelligence can make diagnosis more efficient and decrease margins of error in medical diagnosis. After intense training, it can mimic a human, understand complex situations quickly, and recognize patterns rapidly. Artificial intelligence can diagnose patients with increased accuracy and more quickly. According to Stanford Universities Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Division, a division focused on advancing AI to improve the human condition states that AI has the “ability to ingest huge amounts of data, make sense of images, and spot patterns that escape even the most-skilled human eye have inspired hope that the technology will transform medicine”. AI can then complete diagnosis faster and can be an early detection system since it can recognize patterns quickly. Artificial intelligence is positively impacting the medical industry and can be seen through the lenses of radiology, cancer, and optometry. Though these are only three of the many different parts of the medical industry that Artificial intelligence can help in, it gives one a good understanding of the technology and how it can be further applied to other places in the medical industry. AI “Algorithms are created by people who have their values, morals, assumptions, and explicit and implicit biases about the world, and those biases can influence the way AI models function,” said Nicol Turner-Lee, Ph.D., a sociologist, and director of the center for technology innovation at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.”. 

Connection

Artificial Intelligence is currently one major part of the medical industry's adaptation to ways to advance the patient experience and healthcare practices. Similar to plants and animals that adapt to cities to stay alive, the medical industry and AI are constantly changing to better fit their patient’s and users needs.  According to an article titled Urban Evolution: How species adapt to survive in cities by Eric Bender, states “Probably the best known example of urban evolution is the English peppered moth who is coloration darkened in the 19 century in response to coal pollution”. Species adapt over time to combat situations they are facing and to survive. In species, that can be issues of climate change, pollution, and/or urbanization.  In the medical industry that can be new research on a disease, a new way to do a certain procedure or new technological advancements. One of those technological advancements is AI. AI is also adapting to new situations and constantly changing. AI is faster and better since it first came out and will keep growing with machine learning and deep learning, which helps it adapt to any situation. AI and other technologies will help provide easier access to healthcare to people in rural areas and people who can not physically go to a doctor. AI will also help with the check-in process, making it more efficient. These adaptations in the medical industry push the industry forward and make sure that they stay up to date with what’s happening in the industry and how they can better serve patients. This ultimately leads to patients lives being saved. Plants and animals adapt to stay alive similar to how AI and the medical industry adapt to save lives. 

Radiology

Additionally, Artificial intelligence is helping radiologists make meaningful diagnoses in their practice, ultimately saving lives as they go. Radiologists must “visually scan through stacks of images while periodically adjusting viewing planes and the window width and level settings.” Radiologists rely on education, experience, and an understanding of the healthy radiograph, radiologists are trained to identify abnormalities based on changes in imaging intensities or the appearance of unusual patterns. According to the National Library of Medicine, “AI methods excel at automatically recognizing complex patterns in imaging data and providing quantitative, rather than qualitative, assessments of radiographic characteristics”. AI can make the diagnosis process more efficient and effective with its ability to recognize complex patterns. It will ultimately make healthcare faster and allow lives to be saved. Eventually, AI researchers believe that, at some point, it could take over image-based diagnosis and detection. If CNNs (convolutional neural networks) realize their promise in the context of radiology, they will be able to help radiologists achieve diagnostic excellence and ultimately enhance patient healthcare. 

Systems and products in the market today still rely on humans, which are called computer-aided detection algorithms. These systems read the exam results simultaneously as the radiologist, or the system is used as a second read, but these systems can not be used as standalone systems. According to a journal titled Pediatric Radiology, which aims to inform its readers of new findings and progress in all areas of pediatric imaging and in related fields, “Instead of acting based on knowledge and research of a population, AI algorithms can support precision medicine by predicting risks and outcomes based on individual characteristics.” This can result in improved health outcomes by suggesting other tests to patients who need them. Using artificial intelligence in radiology will help make diagnosis more accurate since it will be able to predict outcomes as well as reduce detection time from 80 minutes to 35-50 minutes when the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany stimulated this concept. An adaptable industry and adaptable systems will help improve the patient experience. The medical industry’s adaptation to Artificial intelligence can positively affect Radiology and save lives if done correctly.

Cancer

Altneravitley, artificial intelligence is also helping improve cancer diagnosis. Similarly, It can detect issues faster and more accurately. Artificial intelligence can assist in answering complex questions for doctors. According to the National Cancer Institute, a government institute focused on cancer, states, “Studies suggest that AI has the potential to improve the speed, accuracy, and reliability with which doctors answer those questions” and can help speed up image interpretation and make it more reliable. Artificial intelligence can make the tedious task more accessible and more accurate, allowing doctors to give a better diagnosis and better answer the questions their patients would have about their issues. Artificial intelligence, as it does in radiology, can help detect cancer early. 

This allows for proper treatment to be conducted before it spreads or even forms at all. According to Stanford Medicine’s cancer institute, “This goal will be achieved through the development and application of multimodality imaging strategies, including artificial intelligence to reveal the molecular basis of cancer, to develop multiparametric diagnostic tools and to advance the effective treatment for cancer”. One way cancer is diagnosed is through imaging, and to improve diagnosing cancer early and more accurately, new ways of imaging have to be created with Artificial intelligence that has low margins of error but impeccable accuracy. Then, AI is helpful to society and the person. The implementation of the technology is part of the reason why the medical industry is always adapting and why implementing AI will help improve the patient experience. Artificial intelligence positively impacts the community, and many can benefit from it. 

Optometry

Similarly, artificial intelligence can help optometrists diagnose patients with eye issues and make diagnoses more accurate and efficient. Optometry, one of the most technologically advanced medical industries, has adopted AI already. According to the Journal of Optometry, Perceived advantages of AI included improved accuracy (of diagnosis, refraction, and triage), better efficiency, and assistance in the monitoring of disease progression. Additionally, respondents commented on the use of AI to improve normative databases, assist in expanding care to the underserved, and ease the burden of documentation on the provider. Artificial intelligence can transform optometry since it can help improve the accuracy of diagnosing patients.

 Artificial Intelligence has the power of machine learning and deep learning algorithms, which were defined above. Artificial Intelligence, with the power of these, can detect issues earlier and help improve treatment. Looking at a prevalent immerging disease, age-related macular degeneration, or AMD for short, a recent study reveals that both optometrists and ophthalmologists miss AMD approximately 25% of the time. This means that patients are getting misdiagnosed. Early detection or diagnosis systems can help limit the number of misdiagnoses and change that number to more correct diagnoses.  The implementation of AI in optometry is crucial for advancing eye care and the patient experience. Artificial Intelligence has many benefits in the lens of optometry. Though these benefits appear incredible, some believe they are destroying medical diagnosis. 

Cost

These benefits of artificial intelligence in medical diagnosis hopes to solve issues and save lives in the future. However, some believe that artificial intelligence is damaging medical diagnosis. This is because people think that artificial intelligence will take jobs. However, current systems are not capable of making a diagnosis completely by itself and require a human to assist. There are also concerns that artificial intelligence could not work if the person using it is not trained correctly. This is a lack of training and can easily be solved by requiring an exam to be taken before operating the machinery or software. There has to be checkpoints in place to be able to use the equipment as the equipment is expensive and could not bring the benefits it advertises to bring if not operated correctly. On average, a custom AI solution can cost anywhere from $20,000 to $1,000,000. The significant setback in price is the reason for the slow adoption in the industry. However, as technology progresses, the price will start to decrease. Additionally, people have to be trained, which is an added cost to use the system otherwise, the system has no benefit to the medical professionals who purchased the system. At this time, AI systems are a backup or complementary system for the medical professional. AI is constantly adapting and improving. If the artificial intelligence systems being talked about are brought to the market, medical diagnosis will change.

Conclusion

Through optometry, cancer, and radiology, one can see the benefits of artificial intelligence in diagnosis. Artificial intelligence has the advantage of improving all three industries at impeccable levels that will reimagine what it means to provide care in these industries while saving the lives of the masses. Though AI may lead to job cuts, incomplete training, and still having a margin of error, AI can, more times than not, quickly diagnose a disease or issue before a human ever could. It brings so many benefits to the medical industry and to all sectors in that manner. This allows medical professionals to provide life-saving care that may not even be possible without artificial intelligence. The benefits of AI are endless if applied in the correct situation. 

The solution is to apply artificial intelligence everywhere in the medical industry, starting with cancer research, because of the clinically proven results. The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in cancer research has the potential to revolutionize cancer treatment and knowledge. This could lead to the development of new treatments and therapies for cancer that is more targeted and effective. AI “excels at recognizing patterns in large amounts of data, extracting relationships between complex features in the data, and identifying characteristics in data,” something humans can not do. In addition, AI could automate many routine tasks that doctors and nurses currently perform, such as data entry and record-keeping. This would free medical professionals to focus on more critical tasks, such as patient care, consultation, and in general, where their technical judgment is highly needed. AI could also be used to develop personalized treatment plans for patients based on their unique medical history and genetic makeup. Cancer would gain significant benefits from artificial intelligence if used to its max capability. This would allow for more personalized and effective care, reducing the risk of adverse reactions and side effects. AI is constantly adapting, like the medical industry, which provides a future proof system. This means it is constantly improving itself to become more accurate and deliver more accurate results.  If Artificial Intelligence is used effectively, Healthcare will be reformed.